The document discusses the first large-scale use of chemical weapons during World War I in 1915. It shaped the world's view of these weapons. The experience of WWI influenced international opinion on chemical weapons, as evidenced by treaties before and after the war. The 1899 Hague Treaty prohibited their use, while the 1925 Geneva Protocol more strongly condemned them after witnessing their effects firsthand in the war.

1. New technologies changed international conflicts in
the 20th century. In 1915, chemical weapons were
used for the first time on a large scale. It was this use
of chemical weapons during World War I that shaped
the world’s view of using these types of weapons.
HOW DID THE EXPERIENCE OF WWI SHAPE INTERNATIONAL
OPINION OF CHEMICAL WEAPONS?
CHEMICAL WAR
1
Designed by Erik Nelson

2. Indian infantry in the trenches, prepared against a gas attack. Link.
GALLERY 1.1 Photographs of gas dispersal systems and the trenches: WWI
The trench warfare and stalemate of WWI meant
nations needed new ways of breaking enemy lines.
Instead of firing gas shells, canisters were set in the
battlefield, and military weather men waited for the wind
to be in their favor. Study the images of gas canisters
being loaded and released over the battlefield.
DESCRIBE HOW GAS WAS UTILIZED ON THE
BATTLEFIELDS OF WWI.

3. READ THE QUOTES FROM WWI NURSES AND LIST
THE DIFFICULTIES A NURSE MIGHT FACE TREATING
GAS VICTIMS.
White utility nursing uniform c. WWI (American). Link.
A British nurse treating mustard gas cases
recorded:
“They cannot be bandaged or touched. We
cover them with a tent of propped-up sheets.
Gas burns must be agonizing because usually
the other cases do not complain even with the
worst wounds but gas cases are invariably
beyond endurance and they cannot help
crying out.”
Another nurse recorded
“The men would come in with hideous blisters,
extending from their shoulder down [the
length of their bodies]. The nurses would clip
away all this blistered skin, clean the … raw
surface with antiseptic solution, dry it with an
electric blower and spray on the “amberine.”
Burns treated in this way healed in an
incredibly short time.

4. Photograph of British soldiers wounded by gas leaving the battlefield. Link
A popular painting depicting soldiers wounded by gas. This photograph won acclaim in Britain just after WWI. Link
Study the photograph of soldiers, and the popular
painting made just after the war, and answer the
questions:
• ARE THERE PHYSICAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE
PEOPLE IN THE IMAGES?
• DESCRIBE THE DIFFERENCE IN YOUR FEELING
TOWARDS THE IMAGES.
• HOW MIGHT THE PUBLIC RECEIVE EACH OF THESE
IMAGES BACK HOME?
• WHICH OF THESE IS A MORE RELIABLE HISTORICAL
SOURCE? WHY?
• WHICH OF THESE IMAGES IS MORE POWERFUL? WHY?

5. A German trench after a gas attack. Link
•HOW EFFECTIVELY COULD TRENCHES PROVIDE COVER FROM MACHINE GUN FIRE VS. GAS ATTACK?
•HOW WOULD YOU FEEL HIDING FROM GUN FIRE IN A TRENCH WHILE BEING VULNERABLE TO GAS?
Soldiers in WWI faced few
options for defending
themselves. Their best
was to hide in trenches
from artillery and machine
gun fire, which left them
vulnerable to gas attacks.

6. A Canadian soldier with mustard gas burns, ca. 1917–1918. Link
•WHAT WAS THE RATIO OF SOLDIERS WOUNDED BY GAS TO
KILLED BY GAS?
•WHAT WAS THE RATIO OF SOLDIERS WOUNDED BY NON-
GAS WEAPONS TO KILLED BY NON-GAS WEAPONS?
•HOW DID THE EFFECTS OF GAS ON BOTH KILLED AND
WOUNDED DIFFER FROM THE EFFECTS OF OTHER
WEAPONS ON KILLED AND WOUNDED?
WWI by the Numbers
Power
Total Soldiers
Mobilized
Total Wounded from
Gas
Total Killed From Gas
Total Wounded from
Non-Gas Weapons
Total Killed from Non-
Gas Weapons
Allied Powers (Britain,
France, USA, Russia, Italy)
39,284,467 852,655 78,198 15,279,315 4,654,489
Central Powers (Austria-
Hungary, Germany)
18,800,000 288,000 12,000 10,876,858 2,961,700
Total 58,084,467 1,140,655 90,198 26,156,173 7,616,189

7. WWI military strategists were planning new ways to use
technology to win wars. READ THE EXCERPT from Italian
General Giulio Douhet about his ideas of the future of war.
… The guiding principle of
bombing actions should be this: the
objective must be destroyed completely
in one attack, making further attack on
the same target unnecessary. Reaching
an objective is an aerial operation
which always involves a certain amount
of risk and should be undertaken once
only. The complete destruction of the
objective has moral and material
effects, the repercussions of which may
be tremendous. To give us some idea of
the extent of these repercussions, we
need only envision what would go on
among the civilian population of
congested cities once the enemy
announced that he would bomb such
centers relentlessly, making no
distinction between military and non-
military objectives.
Giulio Douhet c. WWI. Link
WHAT EFFECT WOULD AN ATTACK LIKE THE ONE
DESCRIBED BY GIULIO DOUHET HAVE ON A CITY?

8. Cover image from the leaflet entitled ‘Menace of Chemical Warfare to Civilian Populations’,
published in 1932 by the Chemical Workers’ Union in Britain. Link
FIND A QUOTE FROM GIULIO DOUHET THAT IS
ILLUSTRATED ON THE COVER OF THIS BRITISH
PAMPHLET.
WHAT WAS ARTHUR J. GILLIAN’S OPINION
ABOUT CHEMICAL WEAPONS? WHAT
EVIDENCE FROM THE COVER OF THIS
PAMPHLET PROVES YOUR POSITION?

9. Diplomats to the First International Peace Conference, the Hague, May - June 1899. Link
Before WWI Treaty on Chemical Weapons:
Document 1: 1899 Hague Treaty on Chemical
Weapons
“The Contracting Powers agree to abstain from the
use of projectiles the sole object of which is the
diffusion of asphyxiating or deleterious gases.”
After WWI Treaty on Chemical Weapons:
Document 2: 1925 Geneva Protocol
“Whereas the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous
or other gases, and of all analogous liquids, materials
or devices, has been justly condemned by the
general opinion of the civilized world.”
•COMPARE THE 1899 HAGUE TREATY
WITH THE 1925 GENEVA PROTOCOL.
•IN WHAT WAYS ARE THE DOCUMENTS
SIMILAR?
•IN WHAT WAYS ARE THE DOCUMENTS
DIFFERENT?
•HOW DID THE EXPERIENCE OF WWI
INFLUENCE INTERNATIONAL OPINION
OF CHEMICAL WEAPONS? CITE
SPECIFICS FROM THE DOCUMENTS TO
SUPPORT YOUR POSITION.

10. Works Cited in Order Used
• Cover Image: British 55th Division gas casualties 10 April 1918. Thomas Keith Aitken (Second Lieutenant) - This is photograph Q 11586 from the
collections of the Imperial War Museums(collection no. 1900-22). Link
• Image: Livens gas projector loading, assumed British military - This is photograph Q 14945 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums. Link
• Image: "French soldiers making a gas and flame attack on German trenches in Flanders, 1 January 1917. Belgium." From National Archives and
Records Administration, cataloged under the ARC Identifier 530722. Link
• Image: A gas attack photographed from an airplane. "German Frightfulness from the Air". Available from the German Federal Archive. Link
• Image: Indian infantry in the trenches, prepared against a gas attack [Fauquissart, France]. Photographer: H. D. Girdwood. From the British
Library. Link.
• Image: White utility nursing uniform (BUMED 09-8131-2), U.S. Navy BUMED Library and Archives. Link.
• Quote: Cook, Tim (1999). No Place to Run: The Canadian Corps and Gas Warfare in the First World War. UBC Press. ISBN 0-7748-0740-7.
• Quote: Lavinia Dock, History of the American Red Cross Nursing, (New York: The Macmillan Press, 1922): 611.
• Quote: Field Nurse Vera Brittain, 1918. Link.
• Image: British 55th Division gas casualties 10 April 1918. Thomas Keith Aitken (Second Lieutenant) - This is photograph Q 11586 from the
collections of the Imperial War Museums(collection no. 1900-22). Link
• Painting: Gassed, 1919. Sargent, John Singer. Le Bac-du-Sud, Doullens Road, Doullens, Somme, France. Imperial War Museums. Link
• Image: Nach Gasangriff 1917. Herman Rex: Der Weltkrieg in seiner rauhen Wirklichkeit. Das Frontkämpferwerk. Oberammergau 1926. S. 85. Link
• Image: A Canadian soldier with mustard gas burns, ca. 1917–1918. Canadian public domain. Link
• Image: Giulio Douhet. Italian Public Domain. Link
• Text: The Command of the Air (1921), by Giulio Douhet. Reprinted by Air Force History and Museums Program 1998. Pg. 20. Link
• Image: Cover of the leaflet entitled ‘Menace of Chemical Warfare to Civilian Populations’. Published in 1932 by the Chemical Workers’ Union.
Written by Arthur J. Gillian. Link
• Image: The First International Peace Conference, the Hague, May - June 1899 HU67224. From the Imperial War Museums. Link

11. REFLECTION ON MAKING THIS DBQ
My grandfather used to tell me stories of climbing Mt.
Rainier in his youth. I loved his stories. My imagination tried to
relive those events, longing to know what that challenge was like.
Growing up in Western Washington Rainier dominated our views
on clear days; a monster of snow, ice and rock beckoning me.
The challenge awaited, I needed to experience it for myself. No
old person could tell me how or why, I needed to do it for myself.
As a young teacher, I am re-learning lessons I should have
understood from my own past. Learning happens through
experience. As a teacher, I need to focus on creating
opportunities for my students to experience history and social
studies for themselves so that they can draw their own
conclusions. In the same way my grandfather’s stories enticed
me to the mountain but could not tell me how or why, I can present opportunities for my students to develop their own hows and whys about
social studies.
Creating my first DBQ has been an experience for me to learn as a teacher. It is very difficult for me to stay in the mindset of thinking how
students might approach a document, let alone a series of documents. It is very easy for me to know how and why I am studying history, but
not so easy for me to think how students might encounter the same sources. I am committed to treating my students as capable and
independent learners, and DBQs like the ones we are creating in class can harness student independence and focus it into learning. As I
curate source material and create accompanying questions to guide students I need to always keep the perspective of how they will approach
the document in mind. This will allow me to give ownership of the creation of meaning and understanding to the students.
Going through this process has helped remind me that the learning found in experience can be truly rich, and should be the type of
learning I am committed to regularly making available to my students. They will need to experience for themselves the lessons, and not simply
be told an answer from this old guy. My own experiences on Mt. Rainier mean so much more to me that my grand father’s stories, but I might
not have my own experiences if he had not presented the ideas and possibilities for me to explore on my own.
As a teacher, I hope I can always create opportunities for my students to learn through experience, and well crafted DBQs are a tool to
facilitate that process. The irony is that I need to experience making more to make them well crafted. Further proof that the experiential process
reveals the rich learning. ~ Erik Nelson Twitter/@ENelsonEdu | email
Image Credit: Mazamas hiking trip to Mt. Rainier. Original Collection: Gerald W. Williams Collection. Item Number:
WilliamsG:Mazamas_Ranier1905. Link.

12.
Complete iBook available
free at iTunes
FROM - EXPLORING
HISTORY: VOL II

13. This eBook is a collaborative project of Peter Pappas
and his Fall 2014 Social Studies Methods Class
School of Education ~ University of Portland, Portland Ore.
Graduate and undergraduate level pre-service teachers were assigned the
task of developing an engaging research question, researching supportive
documents and curating them into a DBQ suitable for middle or high
school students.
For more on this class, visit the course blog EdMethods
For more on the assignment and work flow tap here.
Chapters in chronological order
1. The American Revolution by Scott Deal
2. The Pig War by Andy Saxton
3. Cesspool of Savagery by Michelle Murphy
4. Chemical War by Erik Nelson
5. Americans’ Perceptions of Immigration
in the 1920s by Ceci Brunning and Jenna Bunnell
6. The New Deal and the Art of Public Persuasion
by Kari VanKommer
7. Combat Soldiers in Context by Kristi Anne McKenzie
8. The Marshall Plan: Altruism or Pragmatism?
by Sam Kimerling
9. Little Rock Nine: Evaluating Historical Sources
by Christy Thomas
10. First Ladies as a Political Tool by Emily Strocher
EXPLORING HISTORY: VOL II
xiii
Engaging questions and historic
documents empower students to be
the historian in the classroom.

14. Cover image: Replica of old French globe
Date:1 January 1, 2013
Petar Milošević
Peter Pappas, editor
School of Education ~ University of Portland
His popular blog, Copy/Paste features downloads of his instructional
resources, projects and publications. Follow him at Twitter @edteck.
His other multi-touch eBooks are available at here. For an example of
one of his eBook design training workshops tap here.
CC BY-NC 3.0 Peter Pappas and Erik Nelson, 2014
The authors take copyright infringement seriously. If any copyright holder has
been inadvertently or unintentionally overlooked, the publisher will be pleased to
remove the said material from this book at the very first opportunity.
xivSource